Title | FRANK |
Brand | WESTPAC |
Product / Service | FINANCIAL SERVICES |
Category | A03. Casting |
Entrant | DDB SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA |
Idea Creation | DDB SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA |
Media Placement | MEDIA LAB COMMUNICATIONS Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Additional Company | FINCH Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Additional Company 2 | THE EDITORS Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Additional Company 3 | NAKATOMI Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Additional Company 4 | BLACKBIRD Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Additional Company 5 | LEVEL TWO MUSIC Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Ben Welsh | DDB Sydney | Chief Creative Officer |
Tara Ford | DDB Sydney | Executive Creative Director |
Noah Regan | DDB Sydney | Head of Art |
Matt Chandler | DDB Sydney | Creative Partner |
Tristan Cornelius | DDB Sydney | Senior Art Director |
Guy Lemberg | DDB Sydney | Senior Copywriter |
Sevda Cemo | DDB Sydney | Head of Integrated Content |
Tash Johnson | DDB Sydney | Senior Producer |
Chiquita King | DDB Sydney | Managing Partner |
Topher Jones | DDB Sydney | Group Business Director |
Bianca Cohn | DDB Sydney | Business Manager |
Dom Hickey | DDB Sydney | Planning Partner |
Joseph Smeaton | DDB Sydney | Senior Planner |
Christopher Riggert | Finch Company | Director |
Dimitri Karakatsanis | Finch Company | Director of Photographer |
Corey Esse | Finch Company | Managing Director |
Karen Bryson | Finch Company | Executive Producer |
Camilla Mazzaferro | Finch Company | Producer |
Stewart Reeves | The Editors | Editor |
Bernard Garry ASE | The Editors | Editor |
Billy Wychgel | Nakatomi | Colourist |
Kani Saib | Nakatomi | Producer |
Nick Ponzoni | BlackBird | VFX Supervisor |
Bonnie Wilkinson-Smith | BlackBird | VFX Producer |
Karl Richter | Level Two | Music Supervisor |
Abigail Sie | Song Zu | Engineer |
Jess Bonney | Song Zu | Producer |
Kirsty McGregor | McGregor Casting | Casting Director |
Nicoletta Rousianos | The Editors | Executive Producer |
In this film, we celebrate the life of a great bloke with one of the all-time great moustaches. We follow his 80-odd years, witnessing a series of selfless acts, as he lends a hand to dozens of people he meets throughout his lifetime. We first meet Frank as he stops to help his future wife, then see him over the years, catching a bolting horse, conducting the local school band, saving a family in a dust storm, and setting a teammate up for his first rugby try. We follow Frank through to the end of his life and the film resolves at his funeral. Here we see the charming tribute the community give Frank, wearing stick-on moustaches to honour his memory and support his widow. An end super nods to the services of Westpac bank in the difficult financial period after the loss of a loved one.
For this spot we needed key talent who fully captured the spirit of the characters written on the page. Then we had to find their older versions for the final few scenes of the story that take place at the end of our Frank’s life. For the lead role of Frank we undertook a national search to find an actor with an affable charm and a gentle charisma, who also represented the 1950s European immigrants that are so important to Australia’s national identity. This was a key contextual detail. For his wife we needed to find an actor who you could imagine Frank falling in love with at first sight, radiating warmth and grace. Matching the personalities of the older and younger versions of these characters (not to mention the other characters from around the town) made this casting process a unique puzzle to complete.